Obama gospel tour opens, courting black voters

by Mike Dorning

COLUMBIA, S.C.—Barack Obama's presidential campaign today begins a tour of gospel singers around this Bible Belt state to praise the Lord and offer testimonials on behalf of the candidate, a modern twist on a style of old-time politicking right out of the film "O Brother Where Art Thou."

The gospel music tour stirred controversy this week because one of the featured performers, Grammy Award-winning singer Donnie McClurkin, has offended gay activists with his view that homosexuality is a choice and that gays can "overcome" their orientation by turning to God. The campaign sought to tamp down criticism from gay rights groups by adding an openly gay minister to deliver an invocation.

But the three-day gospel concert series—at which Obama is not scheduled to appear—is just the most visible element of the Obama campaign's efforts to target religious voters, especially churchgoing African-Americans.

The Illinois senator's campaign is in the midst of a "Forty Days of Faith and Family" initiative in South Carolina. The program also has included several high-profile appearances by Obama at prominent churches, interviews by the candidate and campaign officials on gospel and Christian radio stations, and so far at least 17 campaign-sponsored "faith forums" that highlight connections between Obama's political stands and the values of the faithful.

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The approach in part reflects the practical political implications of a highly publicized argument that Obama made shortly after his election to the U.S. Senate that faith should play a greater role in politics, particularly in communicating the moral basis for progressive political goals.

But the efforts also reflect the long-standing role of the church in African-American political life and the importance of black evangelicals, who often hold liberal views on economic and civil rights issues but tend toward more traditionalist feelings on abortion and homosexuality.

At the same time, the focus on faith allows Obama to strengthen bonds with African-American women, a demographic group which also feels a strong draw to Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). About two-thirds of active black church members are women, said Frederick Harris, a political science professor at Columbia University who has written several books on the African-American church.

And churchgoers of all races and denominations generally turn out to vote at higher rates.

While the Obama campaign also has launched faith outreach efforts in such other early voting states as Iowa and New Hampshire, its most extensive effort so far has been in South Carolina—and for good reason.

In the 2004 South Carolina Democratic primary, 74 percent of African-American voters said they attended religious services at least once a week, as did 59 percent of all voters in the Democratic primary, according to exit poll data. National exit polls showed only 34 percent of Democratic voters in the 2004 fall presidential election were regular churchgoers.

With its large black population—about half of the voters in the 2004 Democratic primary were African-Americans—South Carolina plays a key role in the Obama campaign's strategy. Advisers hope a strong showing here will provide momentum going into the slew of primaries scheduled for "Super-Duper Tuesday" on Feb. 5, 2008.

The Obama campaign has built up the largest field staff of any candidate in South Carolina and has mounted other operations to mobilize black voters, such as an initiative to organize support through barber shops and beauty salons, traditional social centers for black Southerners.

Obama's faith outreach efforts have not been limited to black churchgoers. He kicked off the current "Forty Days" campaign by attending Sunday services at a historically back church in Columbia, S.C., and then crossed town to do the same at a conservative white Baptist church. The following Sunday, he went to services at a Greenville, S.C., church with a racially diverse congregation.

But African-American congregations are clearly a focus and the gospel concert series involves worship music popular with blacks.

At a faith forum the campaign sponsored this week in predominantly white Greenville, S.C., more than half of the people who attended were African-American women, most of them dressed in their Sunday best.

Obama's national religious affairs director, Joshua Dubois, the stepson of an African Methodist Episcopal minister and himself a former associate minister at a Pentecostal church, told the group of Obama's Christian faith: "It's a strong faith, a robust faith."

And, as Dubois prompted participants to name ways that the next president could help their families and change the community, he drew connections between religious teachings and political goals such as health coverage and better education.

"Aren't those moral values issues? Don't our holy books speak to those issues?" he asked the audience.

Obama has shown greater comfort than his Democratic primary rivals in incorporating the themes and language of faith into his public rhetoric.

He has written about his adult conversion from a secular life to Christian faith under the mentorship of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. at Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side. And he routinely incorporates religious imagery in his speeches. "I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper," is one line that he regularly includes.

During a visit to a church in Greenville earlier this month, Obama told the congregation that faith "plays every role" in his life. The first radio ads that the Obama campaign aired in South Carolina in July introduced him as "a Christian family man."

Traditionally, Democratic politicians have reached out to black churchgoers primarily by cultivating local ministerial alliances and then individual pastors. Those pastors then may introduce the candidates to their congregations or even sometimes directly urge a vote for them.

Obama's initiative appears designed to circumvent or at least supplement that traditional route, noted Harris, the Columbia University professor.

Many black pastors are now more nervous about direct political involvement because of high-profile cases in which the IRS under the Bush administration has taken enforcement action against churches alleged to have engaged in political activity incompatible with their tax-exempt status.

Also, like other African-American political leaders, many pastors are postponing making a choice between support for Obama and Clinton, the former first lady of a White House that developed strong ties to black churches.

Even Rev. John Corbitt, pastor of Springfield Baptist Church in Greenville and the host of a luncheon this week to introduce Dubois to local black clergy, allowed in a conversation afterward that he has still not decided whether he would support Obama or Clinton. He said he planned to host a similar gathering for the Clinton campaign.

"Both of them are friends of the black community. Both are advocates of poor people, struggling people, minorities," Corbitt said.

In the meantime, the Obama campaign has been using the faith forums to recruit lay congregation contacts to spread the word on behalf of the candidate in their own churches.

White evangelicals already have demonstrated that lay activists can be extraordinarily effective campaign volunteers when they turn their efforts toward organizing support within their churches, said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

"There's a large group that they can easily tap into. They know where to find them—they see them every week—and it's an established social network," Green said.

Likewise, the gospel artists who will be touring this weekend for Obama have a huge following that looks to their songs for spiritual inspiration. In addition to performing, the musicians will be speaking about their support for Obama during the concerts and in interviews on gospel and Christian radio stations that the campaign has arranged, said a campaign official.

"It adds some legitimacy to the campaign, religious legitimacy," Harris said. "Here is a space where people are speaking about the glory of the Lord and the importance of electing Barack Obama."

Still, Clinton has a powerful surrogate she could deploy: her husband, Bill Clinton, who remains a beloved figure among African-Americans clearly at ease in the black church.

"I don't think Barack Obama can go up against Bill Clinton in a black church," Harris said. "Everyone I'm sure would be very proud of Obama. But he can't rival Bill Clinton in his style, in the way he can rattle off a Bible verse to make his point."